Upcoming Changes in Patch 1.10

(This is a joke... Bashiok is having some fun, and you guys should, too!)

I found an old notebook in a box and so I wanted to share some changes we're expecting to come through.

In patch 1.10 we're going to make it so that when you're at level cap completing quests will turn XP into gold. So that should be a good change, there will still be a reason to complete quests at max level. We're also going to update some items. In BRD almost all items are going to become blue quality, so that should be a nice upgrade for people. Also all bracers, belts, and gloves will be BoE. Which should help get more people geared up through the AH to tackle this difficult dungeon.

We'll keep you updated should we find any other old notes that are no longer new or exciting.

To expand on Bashiok's feedback, we'd also like to note that we're happy right now with priests feeling unique via their racial abilities. It's compelling gameplay for dwarf priests get to keep Fear Ward to themselves.

On Item Level Requirements for Dungeons

This has probally been talked about before but here we go.

Blizzard why did you just add gearscore as a requirement in some Cata instances. Because obviously GS=Skill right? <-- not raging but its just kinda annoying because your going to start making some people believe GS=skill and in the future some people may not be able to participate in endgame.

The item level requirement was added to help players better gauge whether or not they might be ready to take on that content. We were seeing a lot of issues before where people were upset that someone was in a group that just didn't have the gear to take on the encounters. Or conversely they (personally) were upset that they didn't seem to be able to overcome an instance despite thinking they were ready for it. So, we've sort of baked in a system to better identify "readiness". It's merely a tool to indicate possible preparedness, not an indicator of skill or lack of skill.

We've mentioned it before, but it doesn't hurt to repeat, that we have been putting some thought into easing the requirement for premade or guild groups since those groups may want to help carry a lesser geared player through the encounter and generally have better overall coordination for achieving the completion of the dungeon.

And it's a great system that's flawless! Why, my DK tank finally got the iLvl she needed to queue for Heroics when some caster leather and mail found its way to my inventory via greed rolls!

We do not believe the system to be flawless. We believe it to simply be a tool that can at least help give some basic guidance. It's not perfect and we would like to continue to improve upon it in the future.

Transmute Living Elements Proc Changes

I wanted to hop in and clarify and confirm there was in fact a change that was implemented with the patch that unfortunately did not make the patch notes.

The change actually adjusted the return on the transmutes so that you weren't getting spikes in the amount of items you'd get from the transmute. Instead, if you transmute over a period of time, the amount of the transmute return should even out.

So basically if you transmute on a regular basis, you should see a more regular return on the transmute vs. a spike in large returns. Transmutation specialists will almost always get a PROC when transmuting living elements.

Ok so what I get from this as a whole for xmuting is instead of xmuting and getting like a 5 proc on truegold and then a 2 proc on true gold one week then next week getting nothing but no procs it will now be more like a 2 proc every other day over the course of 2 weeks?

That should be about right. It wasn't about reducing the amount of procs you could get so much as evening it out to be more consistent over all.

Thanks for the update, Neth! There's always confusion about this kind of change after patches when it is not in the notes.

We're very sorry about the confusion and lack of note. Please feel free to keep us up to date if you see anything else that seems out of sorts and we'll try to take a look at it.

With every expansion we've released, we've generally had another follow-up patch that makes a lot of additional fixes and adjustments. Unfortunately, that also means things slip through the cracks despite our best efforts. We do what we can to address those as quickly as possible though and will continue to do so.

Changes to White Talbuk Mounts, Treant Companion Pets

Can someone please explain why my White War talbuk lost his blue horns and feet, this was my favorite mount and now it looks stupid. They mess with my favorite clases, screw with the mounts that have been that way since BC. Seriously I would like to know who is calling the shots now, Cata has been full of dissapointments and let down. Im quitting this game because i know the cool people who managed the game in bc are long gone.

Woah there! Hold your horses (or talbuks, as the case may be).

While not exactly a bug (the opposite, actually), this change to the White War Talbuk wasn't intentional. The current plan is to revert the White War Talbuk to its original, shiny blue hoof and horned state at the earliest opportunity.

...

There's no real conflict, actually. According to the best information the Customer Service poster in EU had, it was a bug (true) which was fixed (also true). We're not generally in the habit of unintentionally fixing bugs, so that was an easy inference to make. In this particular and very unusual case, it was an unintentional fix, though, and we want the blue coloration to persist.

Perhaps that clarifies things a bit?

Daxxarri, was the change to withers unintentional too? Teldrassil sproutling?

They both had different models, and I believe now share the same model, both different than before.The issue where all treant models share the same texture (including Withers and the Teldrassil Sproutling) is something we're aware of and we're hoping to resolve soon.

The original colors for hooves and horns was caused by a bug. They fixed the bug on accident, and are reverting it back because they liked it with the bug.

Correct! We discovered that the wrong texture had been applied to the White War Talbuks horns n hooves, but since we liked it, and you guys liked it, and it felt like a good fit for the art design in Outland, we decided to keep it.

Lockmaw Exploit Fixed

Looks like Blizz didn't care for people standing on the crock statues during the Lockmaw fight. It's now impossible to get on them.

Comments

Comment by HoleofArt

on 2011/02/11 00:40:41

To be perfectly honest what amuses me is the fact that many of these so-called fight "exploits" are strategies, and were valid strategies at that. Blizzard pushes us to think outside the box, and even encourages it, but when we think outside the box and get an advantage in a fight it is hotfixed as an exploit.

There's a significant difference between thinking outside of the box and completely ignoring a part of a boss's encounter, specifically the challenging aspects.You missed it.

Comment by Squishalot

on 2011/02/11 00:48:01

To be perfectly honest what amuses me is the fact that many of these so-called fight "exploits" are strategies, and were valid strategies at that. Blizzard pushes us to think outside the box, and even encourages it, but when we think outside the box and get an advantage in a fight it is hotfixed as an exploit.

There's a significant difference between thinking outside of the box and completely ignoring a part of a boss's encounter, specifically the challenging aspects.You missed it.

To some extent.

Completely ignoring a part of a boss's encounter is ok if the encounter is/was working as intended.

To use Paragon's druid stacking as an example, the extra damage was working as intended. Blizzard simply didn't expect the raid stacking to occur.

Here's an example: we know that Patchwerk is designed to take the three highest aggro melee targets and smash them every second.

What if you one-tanked it and had all ranged DPS? And spammed heals on your tank? Would that be considered a clever strategy, or is that an exploit? (Yes, yes, it's called outgearing the content. But humour me for a while.)

Comment by HoleofArt

on 2011/02/11 00:53:34

What if you one-tanked it and had all ranged DPS? And spammed heals on your tank? Would that be considered a clever strategy, or is that an exploit? (Yes, yes, it's called outgearing the content. But humour me for a while.)

Clever strategy.

Ensidia thing with the Saronite Bombs glitching the platforms on Lich King

Exploit.

The difference is in how you are ignoring the encounter. Changing your raid comp/stacking is a viable solution if you have the resources to do so, however completely nullifying the damage (in the case of the platforms) wouldn't be classified as an "exploit", but would definitely not be how Blizzard designed the encounter. They wanted you to heal it. You heal it. You taking advantage of terrain is merely an over-sight (which I admit, Blizzard seems to be full of) from when Blizzard created the encounter.

It's like Smoke Bomb. Blizzard was shocked that Rogues used it so creatively, and bam, nerfed to 5 seconds.

It isn't pretty, but it happens.

Comment by Tribunal

on 2011/02/11 00:59:41

I'm glad they fixed Lockmaw.

I got kicked from a PUG for telling them that it was a silly way to do the fight and really not necessary or really, advisable (since it is technically exploiting terrain bugs).

Comment by Squishalot

on 2011/02/11 01:09:00

Yeah, I agree that the Saronite Bombs glitch is an exploit, hence my comment about 'to some extent'. Something like Flower Power is borderline. But that's not to say that everything that gets hotfixed must be an exploit.

Suppose a boss has a whirlwind-style attack. Imagine if you could completely nullify it by having a second person in place who taunts the boss away just as he uses it. Is that clever or exploitative if it gets hotfixed so the boss becomes immune to taunts?

I haven't done Lockmaw, so I'm not sure how obviously exploited the terrain is. But I don't think it's fair to assume that all over-sights are exploits (even if some are). Smoke Bomb, Ring of Frost and other such abilities are being rebalanced, just as Nefarion was rebalanced. Using them the way people did before weren't exploits.

Comment by tessae

on 2011/02/11 01:44:31

I think Miyari got trolled by Blizzard.

/facepalm

It was a joke...

Sorry, Blizz nerfed out humor glands.

Comment by MasterOutlaw

on 2011/02/11 04:40:11

I was curious about the talbuk changes. I thought losing the blue was a bug, but it turns out the blue color was caused by a bug in the first place? Interesting.

Comment by Cantoluna

on 2011/02/11 06:33:54

So is my beautiful bluehorned white talbuk going to look like that or a whitefurred version of a silver talbuk? Slightly confused about what the post really say.

Comment by NyteShady

on 2011/02/11 06:51:57

I think Miyari got trolled by Blizzard.

/facepalm

It was a joke...

It's okay, Mi-Mi :3 I got the joke. -nod-Personally, I thought you could've taken it a step further, convince everyone 'ITS 4 REELZ!'

Comment by NyteShady

on 2011/02/11 06:52:51

L2Humorz, gaiz.

Comment by peekatyou

on 2011/02/11 08:28:07

I am confused on a lot of these recent "news round up' posts on wowhead.

It just seems like you take quotes from recent blue posters. A lot of it just quotes from discussion threads or random threads. Although none of it really pertains to any upcoming changes.

Patch 1.10 thread was a random / troll thread.

The only real news thing in there is about the talbuk.

No offense.

It's similar to The Daily Blues on WoW Insider or the Blue Posts section on MMO-Champion.ahh... well I don't read those websites so that's why. thanks for the information.

I just don't think quoting blues on stuff that isn't actually confirmed is news worthy. But if it's a joke topic then It doesn't matter.

I love how when people's tiny minds cant understand a joke, they instantly resort to insulting people.

Comment by xaratherus

on 2011/02/11 08:33:55

So is my beautiful bluehorned white talbuk going to look like that or a whitefurred version of a silver talbuk? Slightly confused about what the post really say.

The blue horns and hooves on the white talbuk was a bug with the model. Blizzard actually liked the blue, though, and intended to keep it; they accidentally fixed the bug, restoring the model back to its pure white version, but they plan on reimplementing the bug so that it goes back to having blue horns and hooves.

Comment by link064

Comment by Cantoluna

on 2011/02/11 10:47:33

So is my beautiful bluehorned white talbuk going to look like that or a whitefurred version of a silver talbuk? Slightly confused about what the post really say.

The blue horns and hooves on the white talbuk was a bug with the model. Blizzard actually liked the blue, though, and intended to keep it; they accidentally fixed the bug, restoring the model back to its pure white version, but they plan on reimplementing the bug so that it goes back to having blue horns and hooves.